Are you my Mommy?
by Nadie2
Summary: A secret from Samantha's past comes looking for her. Now all of SG-1 is searching for the answer she's waited so long for. It's very AU, and told from the point of view of an OC.
1. Chapter 1

I pull my hair into a tight bun, but somehow it just isn't tight enough. I pull the pins out and stick them in my mouth, and let my long blond hair fall down my shoulders. But this really isn't a loose hair kind of an outing. So I try to pull it back up into a bun. It's tighter this time, but nothing will ever be tight enough.

My mom, really my adopted mom, would say I was just fidgeting. It's something that I do whenever I get nervous. And I wonder where I got it from. Certainly not from her, who was so far beyond perfect that they couldn't even see it from where they were. She didn't have any nervous ticks. She didn't have a nervous bone in her body.

Maybe I got it from my birth parents. Like my hair and eyes and height and ungirlish strength. Or maybe I got it simply because I have a complicated enough life to have two sets of parents. Maybe if whoever my birth parents were had kept me, I wouldn't have any nervous ticks.

This was just one of the million things I am determined to figure out.

The bus came to a stop so quickly that if I hadn't already been nauseous, it certainly would have made me that way. I'm here, about to walk into an adoption agency and see if I can figure out who my birth parents are.

This whole thing is insane. I mean, I can't even ask someone for help in the college bookstore. If I can't find my textbook by myself, I'll just get along without it for the semester. I mean, most of them are so filled with nonsense that I'd be better off looking through a microscope than studying them anyway. On the flip side, I can't even tell the male chauvinistic clerks in the hardware store that I don't need help. Hey, just because I'm a woman doesn't mean that I don't know exactly what kind of tools I need to do a job.

But if I can't even talk to people whose job it is to help me, how am I going to walk up to a stranger and ask for everything they know about my birth mom? And how am I ever going to walk up to _her_ and introduce myself?

But I get off the bus, and walk the two blocks to the office. Inside there is a secretary with a pom-pom worth of twisted red hair actually painting her nails. She blows a huge bubble with her gum, and pops it. She looks to be about my own age, but doesn't have the air of a perpetual college student that I carry around with me. She is a cliché of a ditsy secretary, and I hate clichés.

"Hi," I say, and find my voice coming out cracked and soft.

She turns to me. I've gotten her attention, but she's not actually acknowledging my existence quite yet.

I clear my voice and try again, "Hi," I mutter. This time it comes off as slightly less cracked, and a bit stronger.

"Can I help you?" she asks, and I realize she's not a cliché at all. Her face is covered with concern, and she's got the sweatiest voice.

"Yes, I was adopted from here when I was little. Well, actually when I was a baby, you see," and I find to my shock and horror that once this voice gets going it has no intention to stopping.

I'm relieved when she interrupts my rambling, "And you want to see if we can tell you who your parents are?"

"Right, but I know what the laws are. I know that you can only release information to me if the birth mother has given it the ok," I ramble on.

"I'm glad you're so well-informed on the whole business. I've had to break that nasty bit of news to more than a few unfortunate souls, it's not exactly something that I like to do. What's your name dear?"

"Ah… Jane Grent. Of course, it wouldn't have been Grent when I was born, that was the name that my adopted parents gave me." I am tempted to roll my eyes at my own stupidity. She works in an adoption agency office, I'm sure she knows the basics of how the naming works.

Her eyes light up right away, and she fingers through a file. "Your birth name was Baby Carter, and we've all been hoping that you would show up sooner or later." She pulls up a pile of letters so big that she has to hold it between her two hands, and that letters keep slipping out, and after she's handed them to me she has to pause to pick up all the stragglers.

"What are these?" I ask in shock.

"You're mom's been writing letters to the office, just in case you ever stopped by to pick them up. They've all got numbers on them, so you can read them in the order that she's written them." Suddenly she slaps her forehead, "Oh, what a dunce I am! I've got to find you a convenient way to carry them home."

She disappears, leaving me trying to simultaneously balance the precarious stack of letters and decipher what kind of a person my mother might have been based on the precise and blockish handwriting she used to address the envelopes.

The secretary comes out in a minute or two with a box that proclaims its contents is cheap copy paper, but which actually holds nothing besides the faint smell of coffee. Behind her comes about half an office full of people. They don't say anything, they mostly just stare at me.

"I forgot that I will need some sort of picture ID to prove you are who you say you are," the secretary says.

I carefully lay the precious letters in the offered box, and dig into my wallet to fetch her my driver's license. She stares at it for a little while, and a few people glance over her shoulder at it.

"You look just like her," a woman in her early sixties mutters.

"Not the eyes," another of the older one says, "Her eyes must be from her father."

"Thank you," I say, a bit stunned by how successful an outing it is. I escape from the office and hike the few blocks back the bus stop. I want to save the letters for when I am alone in my apartment tonight. It seems somehow sacrilegious to read letters from the mother that you've never met while sitting on a bench with a gaudy real-estate ad waiting for the 11:17 am bus.

But I can't wait that long. So I paw through the box until I find one that has a "1" scrawled on it with a purple marker which pretends to be a pen. It's not my mother's handwriting, but was added by the office I just left.

I carefully slice it open, trying not to ruin the envelope it came in. I've always scorned people, like my mother (my adopted mother of course) who used letter openers. I always thought they put a whole lot of effort into saving something which really didn't need to be saved.

But this envelope was to me more precious to me than any envelope I'd ever had before was. I opened it up and found more of the blockish writing inside.

My breath caught when I saw the date. It was my second birthday. I was about to begin reading it when an oddly prompt bus pulled up next to my bench. I hustle inside, and dropped my fare into the driver's hands before rushing into the first available seat.

_Well, I don't know quite where to begin this letter. So, I'm just going to start with the questions I would most like answered if I were you._

_ I'm sure you are wondering why I gave you up. Let's just say you were quite the surprise. I was sixteen when you came along, and I did not think there was any way I could get pregnant._

_ Still, I really wanted to keep you. But my dad wouldn't even hear of it. He was furious that I was throwing away my future. _

_ And keeping you would have done it. See, I want to be an astronaut. And right now I'm at the Academy training in the Air Force. And you can't go to the Air Force Academy if you have dependent children._

_ If it makes any difference, I usually wish that I'd gone against my father's wishes._

_ I guess the other thing you're probably dying to know is who I am. Well, most of that hasn't been decided yet, because like I said, I'm only eighteen. _

_ Your Uncle Mark says I'm scrappy, and I suppose that's a good a description of any to start off with. I can beat most of the boys at the Academy with arm wrestling. That does harm to their egos. But it's all physics._

_ Brain beats brawn every time._

_ I don't know, it's hard to describe myself. I suppose it's because we spend so much time being told not to brag about ourselves. It almost comes to the point where we feel like we can't say anything good about ourselves at all. I'm going to counterbalance this by telling you three good things about myself, and then telling you three bad things about myself._

_ Good things:_

_ 1. I am currently the top of my class at the Air Force Academy._

_ 2. I am a really good shot with a gun._

_ 3. I am building a motorcycle from scratch._

_ Bad things:_

_ 1. I can't talk in front of groups without turning into a nervous looking geek._

_ 2. I have never had a boyfriend (I know that's strange coming from a teenage mother)._

_ 3. My relationships with my family are all really strange and estranged._

_ So, I guess that's your mother in a nut shell. I bet by now you're glad that I gave you up for better parents._

_ You Mother,_

_ Samantha Carter_

She was wrong. I wasn't glad that she gave me up. She sounded like quiet the amazing person.


	2. Chapter 2

By the next Saturday, I'd read each of the letters at least three times. I'd read the ones that I'd liked the most even more. My mom never did become an astronaut, but it does seem like she did some pretty important things in the Air Force, including some service during Desert Storm. It also seems like she might be a pretty big deal in the field of astrophysics.

Suddenly an idea occurs to me, and I rush over to my computer, and type her name into the search engine that my college subscribed to. It's just like I thought it would be. A whole bunch of articles that were written by my mother. I scan through the titles. I'm a biologist, so I have to work to understand what the titles mean, but I can tell they are brilliant.

Strangely, the articles stop quiet suddenly nine* years ago. My heart jumps into my throat. It sounds like my mom has a really dangerous job. Maybe she isn't even alive any more. It wouldn't be fair, if I finally went to find my mother, only to find out that she's dead.

I open another tab on my computer and look into my bank account. Yep, it looks like I have enough money for a trip to Colorado Springs. That is the place the letters have been coming from for the past seven years.

-0-0-0-

My mom gets nervous.

Just like me.

So I should be brave enough to walk in there and met this nervous mother of mine.

It took me almost an hour, but I finally walk up to the door, and give it a deliberate knock.

In the seconds between the knocking, and my mother arriving I seriously debate running away. But my mom was a freaking soldier and she wouldn't run from anything.

So I wasn't going to run from her.

I hear the faint sound of a bell ringing inside. Then I hear the sound of flip flops snapping down the hallway. I hadn't exactly been picturing my mother as the kind of person who wore flip flops. I was thinking more like combat boots.

She opens the door, and I see what the people at the adoption agency meant. She does look like me. Her hair is exactly like mine, except it's cropped short. Her face has the same shape, and she's freakishly tall just like me. But her eyes are completely different, not only in color but intensity.

She's wearing a flowing skirt, and a nice blouse. But I detect an oil stain on the shirt that I figure is from the motorcycle that she built herself from scratch. I can't help but wonder if I'm ever going to do anything as awesome as that.

"Hi," I offer.

"Oh my god," she says with bulging eyes. Suddenly I think that I must be wrong. I'd figure that since she sent all those letters, and that they had her address on them, that she'd want to see me. But maybe not.

The next second she pulls me into a hug that prevents my breath from getting out for several long seconds. "You're here! You're actually here!"

A man behind her clears his throat, and I turn to the table. She was obviously involved in a game of cards with three men before I entered. They are all huge. I don't mean fat, you couldn't call any of them that. What I mean is tall, and buff, and just freaking impressive somehow. My mom is a woman, and is the smallest of the bunch, but she fits right in. Tall, buff, and impressive.

The man who cleared his throat is sort of old. Too old, anyway, to be spending his time with the rest of the bunch. He has something about him which I think is familiar, although, I can't exactly place why I think that. He's definitely got an air of authority floating around him.

The one in the middle is much taller, buffer, and impressive than the rest of the bunch. And he also has a freaky thing on his forehead. That the only thing that is going on with his face. The rest is an immovable mass.

The last man makes up for the middle man's lack of emotion with a super expressive face.

They were obviously playing poker, and based on the stack of chips near the empty seat, my mom was clearing them out. That seems like exactly the kind of thing that she'd be good at. Although, I'm not sure how anyone could beat stone face at bluffing.

"We'll get out of your way, Carter," the old man says.

"I'm sorry, Sir, it does look like we'll have to reschedule team night."

"I can come back," I stammer, "I mean, it's not like I gave you any warning that I was coming."

"I've waited years for you, poker can be postponed," she insists.

"Well, it was nice to meet you… ah…" expressive face says as the men all grab their coats to make a getaway. He's looking at my mom, and I think he wants to know my relationship to her more than he wants my name, but she looks at me with a bit of panic in her eyes.

It occurs to me for the first time that she addressed all of her letters to me with "my daughter," and the strange thought that my own mother might not even know my name comes to mind.

"Jane," I offer with a smile.

Expressive face looks pretty disappointed that his probing didn't yield better results. But I'm pretty sure she works with these guys. I mean they call her "Carter" and she said they were having a "team night". And this just did not look like it was a bowling team or something. So, I'm not going to go spill secrets about things that happened decades ago. If she wants them to know that I'm her daughter, she is going to have to tell them herself.

"I don't mean to pry," the old one says, "But are you Carter's niece? I pictured her somewhat younger. I guess Mark must be older than Carter by quite a bit."

Sam goes a bit pale, "She's not my niece, and Mark is my little brother."

The old one looks bashful enough that he doesn't say anything else. But the expressive faced one says, "But you've got to be related somehow. I mean, the two of you practically look identical!"

"She's my daughter," Sam says quickly and without warning. The room is so silent. I have an unbelievable urge to squirm. I resist, but the old one doesn't.

"I wish to offer my congratulations Major Carter," stone faced says after a pause of unbelievable length.

"Yeah Sam, it's great," the expressively faced man says.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Carter," the other man says. But somehow his response was the most emotional and meaningful one of the three. I'm not quite sure how that works out.

In a few moments they've shut the door behind them, and I am looking my mom face to face.

And I realize with shock, that I have absolutely nothing to say.

We stare at each other in silence for almost a minute (and minutes are longer than most people believe they are) before she says, "You want some milk or tea or, hell, you're almost old enough for a beer, aren't you?"

I nod, "But I think I'd rather have the tea."

"Right, ah… good girl. I'll have some tea too."

"It's all right if you want the beer… Samantha," I say. It was awkward to call her by her name. Not nearly as awkward as it would have been to call her mom.

"You could call me mom if you want. If you don't want, please at least call me Sam. Even Cassie does that."

"Cassie?" I ask raising my eyebrow.

I can tell in a moment that she's sorry she ever said anything about it, but she responds calmly enough. "Ah, Cassie, she's a girl that we found a couple of years ago on a mission. My best friend, Janet, adopted her. We're close."

"How come you didn't adopt her?" I ask. She locks eyes with me, and we both know that I'm actually asking a very different question.

I mean, she did tell me why she didn't keep me in her letters. But the answer seemed to make a lot more sense before I actually met her. I mean, the woman has presence. I can't imagine that she would be afraid of anything, not even her father. Not even her father, the General, who sounding pretty terrifying in her letters.

Of course, that was years ago, and back then she wasn't the woman that she is now. She was just a scared little girl. A scared pregnant little girl.

"I'm not a mother," she says.

"I think you'd have been a great mother," I say. I don't have any real basis for this assumption. I suppose everyone thinks that their own mother would be wonderful at the job.

She shakes her head, "I don't think you realize exactly how little I actually know about mothering. Besides, I grew up without a mother, and it was awful. I don't know what it would be like to grow up without a father, but I imagine it wouldn't be much better."

"Actually, I did grow up without a father, and it wasn't that bad."

She looks up at me in surprise.

"My adopted parents, they spit up when I was little. Four or five or something. I guess it was old enough that I should remember my dad, but…" I trail off and shrug.

"I'm sorry," she says.

"It's no big deal. My mom and I were really close. And he did write letters and stuff. I mean, it's not the same as when your mom died," I assure her, "I'm really sorry about that by the way."

"I'm sorry too, she was your grandma. And if she had been around when you were born... I don't know, things might have been different if I had a little support."

"So, my birth dad was totally not in the picture," I say. She had touched on just about every subject known to humankind in her letters. Everything from astrophysics to her childhood to politics, but she had never once mentioned my birth dad.

She scoffs, "You can say that again."

"So what was he? Some jerky teenage boy who took off as soon as the stick turned pink?"

She shakes her head and grabs onto my hand and looks directly into my eyes, "You're not going to believe this. No-one ever has. But I have no idea who your father is."

I am shocked.

But I can believe it. I mean, it's not like I know anything about my mother except the things that she told me herself. And when I met her she was with three guys. And besides, maybe she was a lot more stupid and wild when she was sixteen.

That would explain why my grandfather was so set on getting me out of the way right away. Someone who didn't even know who fathered her baby was probably not ready for the responsibility of parenthood.

"Ok, so like, how many possibilities are there?" I ask.

"No, sweetie," she says, grabbing onto my hands more tightly, and looking desperate, "You're not getting this. There are no possibilities. None."

"So you mean…" I stammer awkwardly.

"Yeah, I was still a virgin when you were born."

"Well, maybe like, you got drunk at a party, and…" I stammer.

She shakes her head, "Nope, I'm telling you, there is absolutely no way that I got pregnant."

"Huh," I say leaning back in my chair.

"Huh? That's all you have to say about it? Well, it's a better reaction than my father and brother had. The both called me a liar and wanted to hunt down the man who did it to me. No boy was willing to get within a 100 feet of me for fear of being accused of being the father! But I swear to you, there was no boyfriend. No kissing, or touching, and definitely no sex. I have no idea how you came to be."

So my mother is crazy.

"So you are trying to tell me I was a virgin birth?" I say.

She says "yeah" with a crinkle of the nose, and it sounds like an apology.

"Mom, I'm old enough to handle the truth," I say, "I can handle the fact that my teenage mother had a one night stand. I'm not going to think the less of you. I mean, it's been years."

She sits back in her chair, putting more distance between the two of us than there has been since we met. "It's ok, no one has believed me yet. I shouldn't expect you to."

"Ok, so we won't talk about my father," I say. I desperately try to think of another topic.

She leans forward, "Tell me something about yourself," she says.

I'm an idiot. I'd eagerly eaten up every detail my mother had shared about herself in her letters. It should have occurred to me that she would want me to return the favor.

"Ah, I'm in college. With all the schooling I have planned it seems like I might be an eternal college student."

"I started to feel that way too. I mean, if you add up all of my k-12 schooling, and college and officer training I've been in school for the majority of my life."

"And keeping me would have screwed all that up," I say before I can stop myself.

"Oh, my sweet, sweet, Jane. You were a surprise. But I never viewed you as an inconvenience, and I never said that you screwed up my life."

"My grandpa probably did," I say.

"Not exactly," she says with a slight smile, "The thing I heard a whole lot was how _I_ screwed up my life. But, if you want more new family, I'm sure he's changed his tone. He'd welcome you with open hands." Suddenly she looks around, "Where is the luggage? You don't live in Colorado Springs do you? I thought you were still in Oregon."

"Yeah, that's where I grew up. But I'm staying at a hotel."

"Nonsense, everywhere I've lived since I've graduated from the Academy has had a room for you," she says, standing up. She gets up and I follow her down the hallway.

The room was definably decorated with a girl in mind. The fact that I hate it is not her fault. I mean, she didn't know me when she set it up.

It's pink, and she should have known that no daughter of hers would be a fan of the color. It's a light pink though, and I think I can probably live with it.

There is a wallpaper border which has atoms joining into interesting configurations. The bedding is pale blue and geometric. The dresser and desk were rather an ordinary wood color.

"I love it," I say with a smile.

"That's a bit of a lie. We'll go get your things from the hotel right now."

"Can I get a ride on the motorcycle?" I ask excitedly.

"Not with your luggage, but definitely later. You're going to stay for a while?" she asks hopefully.

"I'm on spring break right now," I say.

"Good," she says with a huge grin covering her face, "Very good."

***I figure that both during the year Sam spent "trying to make the Stargate a reality" and the year she spend working with nanites, she wouldn't have been publishing scientific papers. Also, assuming she didn't publish papers during her time on SG-1. Although she did write a book, I've always assumed it was too classified to publish. I could be wrong though, because she seems to be taking about it when she speaks at the Academy. So she could be claiming to make theoretical gains in what has become a practical field. That seems somehow unethical to me though, so I'm saying she didn't do that in my story.**


	3. Chapter 3

Stress makes you get tired fast. This is something that I figured shortly after I started college. So, I'm not really surprised when I am ready for sleep after the drive to the hotel room, and a short motorcycle ride. My mom says she is going to stay up a little longer. I figured it was going to be a few hours, so I'm pretty surprised when I wake up at one in the morning and hear voices coming from the kitchen.

I know that I shouldn't go spy on my mother. But I also know that she's not going to get mad if I get caught. In fact, even if I do get caught I could just claim that I just woke up in order to get a drink of water.

I slink into the hallway, and realize that there are two voices. Good, that means that my mom isn't crazy. I recognize the other voice as belonging to the old man who was playing poker with my mom.

"I still can't believe that you never told us you had a kid, Carter," the old man says.

"Come on, Sir, you didn't exactly tell us about your ex-wife and Charlie until we'd been together for half of a year."

"Right, but half a year is a lot different than seven years."

"But you wouldn't have told us about them unless you absolutely had to. I just don't talk about it unless I have to."

"Listen, there is no reason to be ashamed. I mean, you aren't the only one who had sex as a teenager. The fact that you got pregnant doesn't mean you did anything worse than those who didn't."

"Except I didn't," she whispers.

"Didn't get pregnant?" he asks, sounding truly and completely confused.

"No, didn't have sex."

"Come on Carter, I promise I don't think the less of you."

"Sir, no one believes me. But you have to admit that this is not the strangest thing you've ever heard of."

"Right, but you weren't working on the Stargate at 16," he says.

"Right, and that's why I was scared out of my wits when it happened. It was only in the last couple of years that I began to actually understand what might have happened."

"Really? Because I'm still pretty clueless. Let's factor in sci-fi, and then you tell me what is going on."

"I think one of our allies might have been running a genetic experiment of some kind."

"Hold it? You're thinking Asgard?" he asks. What? My mom got pregnant at sixteen because of Norwegian heaven? These people are worse than nuts.

"I don't know. I certainly don't think Thor would do something like that."

"No, but Loki easily could have," she points out, "It's not like what he did to you was that different."

Hold it? Did they just claim to actually KNOW Norwegian gods personally? As in, they are friends with myths?

"Yeah, but that was after we'd made contact with them. What you're talking about happened years before. What are the odds that they would pick you specifically? I mean, unless you think this a widespread phenomenon."

Sam shakes her head, "Jack, the Asgard have had time travel for a long time."

"What?" he asks, squinting at her. "You're telling me that while I've been putting all this work into saving their little gray butts, they had a time machine and could have saved their own butts as well as us?"

"Sir, time travel has been banned amongst the Asgard for thousands of years. But Loki doesn't seem too caught up in following the rules."

"You're right about that. In fact, the story is completely believable. I would think that your DNA would be far more valuable than mine. You don't think she's your clone do you?" he asks.

I am barely able to conceal my gasp. But then I realize how ridiculous that is. I mean, I was born years before they cloned their first animal. And they still haven't cloned a human. Besides, they are talking about time travel. The people obviously can't tell the difference between reality and science fiction.

"No, Sir, while she does look like me, a lot like me, there are parts of her that are nothing like me. The eyes, for instance," she says.

"Carter, if the Asgard did have her hand in her creation, she could be in danger."

"I know it, that's one of the reasons I've been trying to find her for years. Then again, finding her might put her in just as much danger."

"Right, we wouldn't want it to exactly get out who she is," he says.

"I want to do a DNA test," Sam says.

"How are you going to explain that to her without straining your relationship?" the old man asks.

"Take this to Janet," she says.

"You stole your own daughter's hair?" he asks in shock.

"Sir, I have to know if the other half of her DNA is… human, normal or whatever. I've been wondering about this for most of my life. I need answers."

"All right, Carter, I'll do this, but I don't like it," he grumbles, "I'll see if I can find out who the father is while I'm at it. But you know if we do find out who the father is its probably bad news. Most of the DNA we have access to is people who work in the mountain, and criminals."

"Right, I'm not even sure that she has a father, and if she does, I'm not so sure that he is human," my mother whispers.

They go on to talking about other things, things which make even less sense than the things that they just touched on. I slip out of the room, and go to the bathroom.

I stare in the mirror, and realize for the first time why the old man looked familiar to me the first time I saw him.

The eyes. MY eyes. The eyes that I got from my father.

Creepy old man.

-0-0-0-0

The smell of burnt food wakes me up the next morning. I stumble out into the kitchen and discover that my ability to cook did not come from this quarter.

"Do you need some help?" I ask.

"Well, I've already scorched every pan in the house. I think maybe we should go out for breakfast."

"Are you sure? Because we could scrub them up, and I could make some eggs."

"Please, honey, it's hard enough to deal with the fact that I can't cook like a mother should be able to. The fact that my daughter actually CAN only makes it worse."

I blink at her, hoping that my anger over what happened last night isn't showing. Then I realize how ridiculous all of this is. It was a dream! Of course, it must have been! None of the things that they said would make sense in the real world. Yet, it was exactly the sort of unconnected nonsense that often weaves itself together in your dreams.

No doubt it can all be blamed on the book of Norwegian mythology I'd been reading on the train ride down there. I'd just discovered the country of my origin (although my coloring certainly suggested it before) and I wanted to learn a little about it, since I knew pretty much nothing before.

My mom would never take my DNA without asking, and she certainly wasn't insane.

"Yeah, breakfast would be great," she says with a smile.

But what about the eyes? That part of the dream at least had a basis in reality. My eyes really are a great deal like the old man's.

-0-0-0-

"So how long have you, ah… been with that team that I met last night?" I ask, after we remove our motorcycle helmets and are able to resume conversation at the restaurant.

"We've been together for seven years, more or less," she tells me.

"Ok, explain the more or less part of that."

"Well, Daniel was gone for a year, and the Colonel has been missing long periods of time on a few separate occasions."

"The Colonel, what's his name?" I ask.

"Jack O'Neill," she says looking at me with a question in her eyes.

"You knew him for a lot longer than seven years though don't you?" I ask.

"No," she says, "I mean, I did read a few reports he wrote in the few years before I met him, but before that I never heard of him at all."

"Are you sure you didn't know him when you were a teenager?" I ask.

She shakes her head.

"Because he's in the Air Force right? And your dad was in the Air Force? Maybe you meet him, but you just don't remember it."

We get a table before she says a neither word about it, "Ok, what exactly do you think you know?"

"Look at my eyes, Sam," I say.

She smiles as she obeys, "I know sweetie, you're eyes are beautiful."

"And I bet they are oddly familiar to you," I prompt.

"They do seem that way. But I spent so much time looking into your eyes for your first couple days in the world, that I probably just remember it from that," her face pauses in confusion, "Although it seems as if I remember them being blue back then."

"A lot of babies have blue eyes when they are born, and then they turn other colors later on," I explain, "But you recognize the eyes for another reason."

She stares at him for a lot longer.

"I'm sorry," she says, shaking her head, "I've got nothing."

"They are a lot like Jack's," I say.

Her eyes go wide, "Oh my God, of course! That makes perfect sense!"

"Does it?" I ask with raised eyebrows, "Because, I'm pretty lost over here."

"Listen, honey, I've got a call to make."

"You're going to tell them to arrest him right?" I ask.

"What?" she asks with genuine surprise and horror.

"You told me that you don't remember having sex. You were genuinely surprised when I told you who my father was. He's a lot older than you. When you were sixteen, he had to be what? Thirty? Even if it was consensual, and unless you lied it wasn't, then it still wouldn't be ok."

"Honey, I know that is what it looks like, but I promise you that is not what happened," she says.

"Seriously? You're going to defend him?" I ask angrily.

"I'm going to make a phone call, and then we are going to go somewhere were this all make sense," she says. She goes outside. I watch her through the large window as she makes her phone call. She clutches the metal railing with all of her might.

I find myself pitying her, not only for what happened to her years ago, but also for what is happening to her right now.


	4. Chapter 4

The guard at the tower gives me a glare, "You're taking a civilian on base with you, Major Carter?"

"Yes, I'm vouching her on base. I can contact the General, too, if my word isn't enough."

"You word is more than enough, Ma'am," he says, "I'm just surprised. She's got clearance?"

"Ah… she's getting clearance."

We walk through a hallway and get into an elevator. We haven't said a whole lot ever since she went to make a phone call.

I know it's my fault. I mean, I've just started bonding with my new mother. I shouldn't be shaking up ancient history, and making her deal with what had to be a pretty traumatic part of her past. If she was able to get past it, all the better.

We get out of that elevator, and get on another one.

"Where exactly are you taking me? The center of the Earth?" I tease.

She quirks a smile, "You're not far from the truth. This place used to be a missile silo, but that was a long time ago."

"What is it now?"

"Ask me that question in another hour, and I'll actually be able to give you an honest answer. Until then, I'd rather not say."

"What's going to change in the next hour?"

"You're going to sign some paperwork."

I'm a little offended that she just assumes that I am going to do whatever she asks me to. I mean, she is my mother, but I'm not sure she's actually earned the right to boss me around. "How do you know that I'm going to sign it?"

"If you don't, you're never going to understand where you came from."

"I think I have a pretty good idea."

"You think you do, but you don't."

"So you're telling me that my origins are classified?" I say with raised eyebrows.

"Yep," she says.

The doorway opens, and Jack is waiting for us.

"Sir, any news on Loki yet?" Sam asks him.

"Are you kidding me?" I ask her in shock, "Even now that you know what he did to you, you are going to call him Sir? That's a term of respect, and he hasn't earned that."

"He deserves all the respect in the world and more, he's a good man."

"Listen, if he is here, than I don't want to be," I tell her.

"If you still feel that way after you know everything, then you'll never have to see me again," he says, taking a step away from me.

His eyes are filled with intense sadness. Sadness that is so deep and old that I can't comprehend it.

"Sir, are you ok?" Sam asks, falling into step next to him.

"Peachy," he says with sarcasm that is too much like mine for my own for comfort.

"Sir."

"Carter, my daughter hates me," he mutters.

"She's going to love you," Sam assures him.

I'm about to protest, but we enter a meeting room. An old bald man grins at me, "Jane," he says, pulling me into a hug.

"Grandpa?" I ask uncertainly. I don't know much about the Air Force, but I do know that the stars on his shoulder mean he's a General.

"No, dear, unfortunately I'm not. But I'll be glad to play the role."

"Has Jacob been called?" Jack asks.

Sam looks at this other General nervously. "I put the call in. I just told him to come, I didn't know how to begin wording the rest of it."

"Thank you, sir," Sam says.

"Well, let's have a seat," the General says.

The General sits at the head of the table. Jack and Mom sit across from each other next to him. I sit down next to my mom.

"First of all we need you to sign this," the General says, slipping a stack of papers toward me.

"What is this, General?"

"You can call me George, and this is a non-disclosure agreement. It means you aren't going to tell anyone about what you find out here."

"And I don't, I never get to figure out your precious secrets?"

"You're going to want to know," Sam says, looking intently in my eyes.

I break eye contact with her only long enough to sign the paper.

"Show it to her!" Jack exclaims.

George smiles, and gives a nod to my mother. She moves over, and pushes a button the wall. The metal wall lifts up revealing a huge room, like three stories big. It's mostly empty, but it's got this huge ring thing in it.

"What is that?" I ask, stunned. I can't help but take a couple of steps toward it.

"That is a Stargate," my mom says.

I turn to her, surprised. I remember that word from the thing I'd convinced myself was a dream. So it wasn't, then. Jack and Sam really had a late night conversation about Norwegian gods. And they might not even be crazy.

"Ok, what is a Stargate?"

"It's a device that creates a stable wormhole that allows instantaneous travel…" Mom begins.

"It lets you go to other planets super fast," Jack says.

"So you are an astronaut then," I say to Mom.

"I guess I am," she says with a smile.

"What does this have to do with me? There is no way that you were going through this before I was born."

Then the words "Time Travel" come back to me.

"Hold it, does that thing just go through space?" I ask.

"Usually," Jack hedges.

"Actually, the Stargate doesn't have anything to do with you, at least not directly," Sam continues.

"See, we made some friends going through the Stargate."

"You're not going to tell me I'm an alien are you?" I ask nervously.

"Well, you were probably made in a ship in orbit in the Earth's atmosphere, so if you consider that being an alien, then you are," Jack says.

Sam glares at him, "Honey, we're not quite sure what happened yet. We're still looking for some news from our allies. But, there is this alien named Loki. He's part of a race that are usually the good guys. But he does unauthorized experiments on humans."

"The aliens have authorized experiments on humans?" I ask worriedly.

"That's what I said!" Jack exclaims.

I give him a smile before I can help myself.

"Anyway, a few months ago they cloned Jack, well, they cloned a younger version of Jack. But the Asgard, I mean Loki's race, they have access to time travel technology. We think they genetically combined our DNA, and then implanted it into Sam."

"Why would they have done this when she was just a teenager?"

"Well, that was the only time when it wouldn't have interfered with her career. A few years later and she wouldn't have gotten to go to the Academy. If it happened after that she would have been taken out of what she did and put on light duty for the better part of a year. The reason why he was interested in her in the first place, is because she is beyond awesome. He wouldn't want to take that awesomeness out of commission," Jack exclaims.

Sam blushes.

"Ok, this is a really great story, but you have to realize that there are a lot simpler ways of explaining the same thing," I point out.

"And what would they be," George booms in a voice that I can tell has an edge of a threat in it.

"That he raped a young girl when she was unconscious," I accuse Jack.

"If you knew this man you wouldn't even say that," Sam says, firmly but quietly.

"So you're really just taking his word for it? I mean, you're jumping to alien interference with absolutely no evidence?" I plead.

Sam glances at Jack in a way that clearly means something, but I can't even begin to guess what message she is sending him.

"No," he says firmly.

"Sir, if we don't tell her she'll never believe us."

"Carter, this is not the type of thing you can un-know. I don't think she is going to be able to deal with the knowledge."

"I can deal with a lot more than you think I can," I say angrily.

"I didn't mean you specifically couldn't deal with it, I actually meant that no one could deal with it," he says.

"Listen honey," Sam says, turning and putting her arm on mine, "We ran your DNA." Right, stolen DNA, I'll worry about that later though. "And while it was a match for both Jack and I, there was also a part of it that was not a match for either of us."

"So you're saying I have three parents?" I ask, confused. That doesn't seem possible, but if aliens are involved, who knows?

"Honey, they're saying you were genetically engineered," George says.

"Why?" I ask.

A short brunette woman walks into the room, "Usually the answer is Hok'tar, but we're dealing with the Asgard not the Goa'uld."

"What are the Goa'uld?" I ask.

Jack glares at the newcomer. "Honey, you don't need to know that," he assures me.

"Right," the woman says apologetically, "Well, we know that when they cloned Jack their goal was to find a solution to their cloning problem. But she's not a clone. So I'm not really sure what the purpose was here."

"I think I can answer that question," says the short gray alien that has just appeared in the chair next to me. After that, I pass out.

-0-0-0-

As I wake up the first thing I see is stone-face. "O'Neill, your offspring has awoken," he proclaims.

"How are you feeling?" the one with glasses asks, sitting down on the bed next to me.

"I'm ok," I assure them, looking to the other side of the room where Jack is standing. My mom is nowhere in sight.

"Where is Mom?" I ask.

"Ah… Sam and George are talking to Thor," Jack says.

"Thor?" I ask.

He looks at the other two.

"I don't think it will hurt to tell her, Jack," the one with glasses says.

"You'd better be right, Daniel, because I will not watch my little girl pass out ever again," Jack says.

"I'm fine, who is Thor?" I ask, sitting up, a little offended that Jack calls me a little girl.

"The extraterrestrial who startled you with his presence," stone-face says.

I smile at him, "What's your name?"

"Teal'c," he says with a ghost of a smile.

"And, is it ok to ask about the forehead?" I say, asking advice from Daniel. He seems to be the diplomat of the group.

"It is a mark of slavery to false gods," Teal'c replies.

"And you're an alien, right?" I ask.

"Indeed," he says.

"So what did Thor say about me?" I ask eagerly.

"I don't know, you hit the floor before he could tell us," Jack says.

"Well, you have to go talk to him! He's an alien, you can't waste his time!" I exclaim.

"Your mother is with him," Daniel says.

"You should be, too," I tell Jack.

"Not a chance," Jack says.

Daniel laughs, "You should have seen him in there. He chewed out Thor for scaring you, and your mother for not catching you, and Janet for not checking on you fast enough. Then he carried you down here by himself even after they met you with a gurney. He ordered you a bunch of cake and jello for when you woke up, and he probably would have done more if you had been out for more than a couple of minutes."

I look at him, "Sorry I worried you."

"Hey, it's ok, I'm just glad you're ok," he says.

"I'm also sorry about what I thought about you," I say softly. After seeing his reaction to the tiniest cause for worry, I can't imagine him actually hurting a teenager.

"Well, based on the information you had, that was what you had to assume; I was a creep. Personally, I'm relieved my daughter had the good sense to stay away from the guy she thought I was."

I search his eyes, and know that he really needs acceptance from his kid. I'm not sure why, but I give it to him anyway, "Can I get a hug, Dad?"

He looks like he is choking up, and he is trying desperately to hide it. He gives me a bone shaking hug that lifts me part way off the bed.

"The cake came, Sir," a nurse says.

"Ah! You do like cake, right?" he asks me critically.

"I do, but I think we should be getting back to the briefing room."

"Honey, you passed out, you shouldn't be going anywhere," Jack says.

"I'm fine," I assure him, trying to stand up.

This makes Daniel laugh. Jack shoots him a glare. "Sorry, Jack," he says, "I just never thought we'd ever find someone who is harder to keep in the infirmary than you. And of course, it turns out to be your kid!"

"Seriously, you need to sit down until we know for sure you are safe," Jack says sternly. I've never really had a dad to boss me around, and I find that he is quite intimidating.

"Actually sir, she is free to go," the doctor says coming up behind him.

"You've got to be kidding me, Janet. Every time you get me in this place you build a gilded cage around me. But my daughter is here, and you can't even run a MRI or boast her electrolytes or do anything!"

"Sir, if I wasn't 100% sure that she was fine, I would not let her leave," Janet says a little offended by his earlier speech.

"I know," he says with a sigh.

Jack helps me stand up, and we start walking down the hallway together, "You know, I would have been there for you when you were growing up," he tells me, "If I had known that you existed."

"I know," I assure him, and somehow I do know that he is telling the truth.


	5. Chapter 5

"Sir?" Mom asks, alarmed, as I come back into the briefing room.

"She's fine," Jack says as he pulls out a chair for me.

Thor is sitting across the table from me. "Hi," I say.

"I am sorry my presence startled you. I am used to humans being a little less surprised by my sudden appearance."

"I have to be honest with you, Thor," Jack says, "We're not nearly as used to it as you think we are."

"So, the guy who made me, he's like you?"

Thor pauses, looking slightly offended, "He looks like me, but he is not like me."

"No… I didn't mean that, I just meant the same species," I stammer.

"Yes, Loki and I are both members of the Asgard species," Thor says.

"So, basically, I'm a genetic experiment," I say.

Mom reaches across the table to grab on of my arms, and Jack grabs the other one. They both open their mouths to say something, but Thor stops him. "Every Asgard starts in a science lab. We are all clones. We have all been clones for hundreds of thousands of years. It does not diminish our personhood."

I look up at him with wet eyes. "Thanks, Thor."

"So, she's got the Ancient gene, I assume?" Jack says.

"What's that?" I ask.

"Well, the Ancients, are a species of aliens that ascended..." Mom begins.

"Really, Carter? You started with ascended?" then he turns to me, "Ancients are these aliens that look just like us. hey are pretty much gone now. But they built some pretty neat toys, and you have to have a special gene to operate these things. And, well… I have it, so…"

"Yes, she has the gene," Mom says.

"Any other interesting stuff?" Jack asks, looking at Thor.

"Everything else looks normal," Thor assures him.

"Why did he do it?" I ask, looking Thor right in the eyes. I find that it is unnervingly different than looking a human in the eyes.

"He was endeavoring to solve our cloning problem by creating an advanced human."

"So, how exactly was I made? Test tube, and then put in… Sam?"

Thor nods.

"And I'm just a normal human right, just a mix of two people's DNA like everyone else?"

"I think it is more likely that you were created, and then Loki manipulated some of your genes at the molecular level. We will know more when we complete an interrogation of Loki. We would have discovered all of this already if Loki had not destroyed his lab notes."

"So, we're back to why?" I ask.

"He believed your genetic code was the key to saving our race," Thor says.

"What do you need?" I ask. I can't really believe that I am as important as they say I am. But if an alien needs something from me to save an entire race, I am certainly going to give it to him.

"I would appreciate a blood sample. But I don't believe it is a solution to our problem."

"Why not?"

"Because he didn't stop looking," Thor explains.

"Ok, so if all he needed was a sample of DNA, he didn't actually need me to exist at all right? I mean, he could have just taken it when I was a cell big."

"That would have destroyed you," Thor informs me.

"So?"

Jack stands up, and pulls me into a hug. I hear something that sound suspiciously like sobbing coming from him. He speaks without pulling away from the hug. He's muttering clothy words which only I can hear. "Your life is valuable. Not because some alien decided it was. It's valuable, because you are you. Life is precious. You don't really understand how precious until someone near you dies. But it's really precious, and you need to live."

I pull away, and look in his eyes as I speak, "I didn't mean it like that. I'm grateful that he decided to let me live, even if it did screw up Mom's life. I was thinking of it from Loki's point of view. There is no reason why he should want me to live."

"I keep telling you Jane, you did not screw up my life," Mom says.

The General clears his throat, "I think we have all the information we need right now. I'm having SG-1 on stand down for…"

"She's here until the end of the week, sir, not that you need to give us all of that time," Mom says.

"You've certainly earned that. I'll call you if Thor gets anything out of Loki," he says.

"Or if someone presses the wrong button on that big fancy computer. You're the only one who can fix that," Jack says.

"That's true, but we'll try to keep the disruptions to a minimum," George says.

Suddenly a really and truly obnoxious sound starts up. Everyone stands up and runs down the spiral staircase at the far side of the room without a word. I'm really not sure if I should be following or not.

Dad pokes his head up a few seconds later, "Come on, honey," he says waving his hand toward me.

I walk down the staircase to see a guy with super short white hair and glasses typing on a computer. George is bending over a microphone. The gate is beeping and steaming, and metal is disappearing from it. It's even cooler when you see it in action.

"Jacob, come on through," George says.

"Jacob?" I ask with a raised eyebrow.

"That's your grandpa, honey," Sam says.

I take a step back in sudden panic.

Dad sees my face, "Jacob is going to be happy to see you."

I shake my head, "Mom wanted to keep me, Jacob wouldn't let her."

Dad's eyes glance at Mom, who gives him a slow nod.

"Honey, things are going to be different now. He might not have wanted his sixteen year old to have a baby, but that doesn't mean he doesn't want to get to know you now. Jacob is a good man."

"Sam, go meet him," Jack nudges.

"Right, come on, Jane," Mom says, and she looks worried.

He's got a face which makes it hard to imagine him as an angry General. His eyes are filled with joy, even laughter. And he looks like he's dressed in a paper bag.

"Sammy," he says, holding out one arm. He grabs her by the elbow, and pulls her into a slightly awkward half hug. Then he drops that arm, and pulls her close to him, "Are you ok? George said something came up with you. You didn't get hurt, did you?"

"No, Dad," she says, pulling away. "I just wanted you to meet Jane, and she's only here for a week."

"Hello, sir," I say.

"Nice to meet you," he says without much attention, before turning back to Sam with a question in his eyes.

"Jane is my daughter, Dad," she says.

He turns back to me and looks at me for a long, long, time, drinking in each and every detail. "I've missed you," he says, pulling me into a bone crushing hug.

I start crying.

"It's ok, honey, it's ok," he whispers.

"I'm sorry," I whisper, "I'm sorry if I screwed up things with you and Sam."

Jacob pulls back, and runs a hand across my face, "I was the one who screwed up things between Sam and I. And it happened long before you came into the picture."

"No, Dad," Mom says moving toward him.

"We've fixed things, these last few years, Sam has fixed things," he says, smiling at his daughter.

"Dad, you want to go for lunch?" Sam asks.

"I'd love that, you still have street clothes for me in your office?" he asks.

"Yeah," Sam says.

I see Jack scooting away from the group, and I know that this is killing him.

"Can Dad come?" I ask.

"Dad?" Jacob says turning to me, "You know who your father is?"

Crap, crap, double crap.

"I, ah…" I stammer, and then I accidently look at Jack.

And now I know how Jacob looks as an angry General. His eyes actually flash brighter than a light bulb for a few seconds. I'm really not sure how that is possible. It certainly isn't normal human possible, but I've already figured out that my family is anything but normal. Then he rushes toward Jack, "You bastard!" he shouts, running toward Jack.

"Dad, stop!" Sam yells, trying to get between them.

"She was sixteen, Jack! You were what? Thirty something! You musta been married… You had a kid by then, didn't you?" He gets Jack backed up against the wall, with a fist raised. Jack doesn't flinch. Jacob throws a punch, which I think was meant to be a little wild. Jack slips out under his armpit.

"Dad, Jack did nothing wrong," Sam says.

"I don't care what line of bull he sold you back then. Sam, you have to know that what he did was wrong. You were a child, he was an adult. What he did to you," he turns to me, and his eyes go tender, "What if someone did that to her? And you were much younger!" He looks at Sam, "I can't forgive him for hurting my little girl."

"Jacob!" George bellows as he enters the room.

"How come he isn't in the brig?" Jacob asks.

"Loki was involved," George says.

Jacob turns to Sam, "My God, you were telling the truth. There was no father," he says, stunned.

"Well, as far as I knew," she says with a smile.

"But Jack is the father?" Jacob asks looking confused.

"Yeah," Jack says, "But I swear, sir, I did nothing to her. I didn't meet her until she walked into this briefing room seven years ago."

Jacob looks at Jack softly, "Well, if Loki had to make my daughter have anyone's baby at sixteen, I'm glad it was you, Jack."

Then he looks at me, "I'm sorry, Jane. I've always wished… I should have let her keep you. She wanted to, you know?" I nod my head, "But I was scared she'd change her mind. That I'd end up raising you. She was so young…"

"I understand," I lie.

"But I was wrong about everything. She would have raised you. And she would still have had a great career. Not the same career, of course, but a great one none the les. The thing I was most scared of… was that I'd screw you up the way I messed up my children. I thought I'd ruined them, see. When you were born, it didn't look good. Mark, he's Sam's little brother, he was angry, and he was drinking. And Sam was pregnant. I thought… after their mother died, I ruined them."

"Dad, none of that was your fault," Sam says, coming up from behind and hugging him.

He wraps an arm around her, and kisses her temple, "But my kids turned out fine, despite me. And if I'd kept you… you would have too. I mean, you did anyway. But if I'd known that I wouldn't have ruined you, I would have kept you. I'm sorry."

My lip quivers, and I hold out my hands to him. He pulls me into a tight hug. "Baby girl, I love you."

The gate suddenly starts making noise. "That's SG-4 coming back," George explains.

"We'd better get her out of here," Jacob says, putting a hand on the small of my back. He, mom and I are almost out of the room when he calls back, "Come on, Jack. You're practically my son-in-law."

"Dad!" Sam scolds, turning red.

Oh my gosh! I can't believe I didn't see it before. My parents are actually in love with one another. And Dad's married to someone else. That explains why they aren't together.

While we are waiting for Grandpa to change clothes, Mom and Dad are oddly silent.

"So I'm a sister?" I ask.

"What? No," Mom says absently.

"I mean Jack's kid," I say. They look a little startled. "Grandpa mentioned that he had a kid."

Mom looks at Jack, and I can tell that she is asking his permission to tell me something. He takes a deep breath and decides to tell me himself, "Charlie died. Years ago."

"I'm so sorry," I tell him. Then I realize. The anti-suicide speech he gave me a while back. Did Charlie kill himself?

Jack looks away.

"So your wife?" I prompt.

He runs his finger through his hair, "Sara left me years ago."

"And… anyone in the picture now?" I ask him coyly.

He glares at me.

"I'll take that as a no. How about you, Mom?" I ask.

Jack looks at her with… too much interest.

She narrows her eyes at him. "No, honey."

"So what about the two of you?" I ask. The direct approach is a great place to start. I can always try gentler methods if this one doesn't work.

Dad sighs, "Listen, honey, I know that every kid wants their parents to be a big happy family. And usually that's probably a pretty rational thing to want. I mean, the parents were together at some point. But, you have to admit these are pretty extraordinary circumstances."

"I'm not JUST asking because you're my parents," I say.

Mom gives him a quick glance, but they don't say anything. Just then Grandpa comes out of Mom's office. He looks around at us. "What conversation is causing this strange silence?" he asks.

"I was just asking why they have never been together," I explain.

"Frat regs," Jacob says, as if it's the most normal thing in the world.

"What?"

"A military regulation which says that you can't have a relationship with someone who is in your chain of command. But I maintain that they broke it long ago."

"Whoa! Jacob, I've never touched your daughter," Jack says, with his hands in a defensive position.

"Physical or romantic relationships are not all that's covered in that reg. Friendships can lead to favoritism and lapses in judgment, too. Let alone that quasi-family thing you have going on with your merry bunch of orphans. I've seen the way SG-1 functions. Jack, you break the frat regs with your whole team."

"So if people on the team like each other, that's it? There is nothing they can do about it?" I ask.

"Jane," Dad starts to scold. (It's weird to be scolded by a dad.)

"No, one of them could switch to another team, and then they could do whatever they wanted."

"Why haven't they done that then?" I ask.

"Bets the hell out of me," Jacob says.

"Dad!" Sam scolds.

He grins at her, "When we go out to eat it should go somewhere with ice cream. Grandpas should get ice cream for their grandkids."

All the times that I imagined my family when I was a little girl, I never imagined they would be like this. These people are better than I imagined.


	6. Chapter 6

"So, Jane, what do you do?" Jacob asks.

"College student," I confess.

"You mentioned that last night, but you didn't tell me what it was in," Mom says.

"Biology."

"Another scientist," Dad mutters in a voice that I know is sarcastic.

"Ah, but she's in the soft sciences, so it's ok," Mom teases.

Dad steps up to defend me, "Biology isn't a soft science like anthropology or psychology."

I pat his arm, "Actually, biology is sort of a soft science, and that is something I like about it. I like shifting through confounding variables, and running several equations all at once. Physics would be too easy," I say, teasing my mom.

"So you're telling me that you're actually smarter than Carter?" Jack says with a wink at Sam.

"Of course she is!" Grandpa says, "This family gets a little smarter with every generation."

"I wouldn't actually say that biology is HARDER than physics," Mom says, "But I am really proud of you."

"So… any boys I have to beat up?" he asks.

I flush red.

"Jack, she can date whoever she wants," Mom says.

"No, she can only date someone who is going to treat her perfectly. Someone who isn't going to touch her until she's married," he says.

My eyes are focused on the table, and suddenly they come right up to his, "I've never done this whole… father-daughter thing before."

He reaches across the table to touch my face, "I'm so sorry, Jane. I wish I could have been there. Sara and I… we wanted more children. I REALLY wanted a daughter. You could have had the cute skirts, and had tea parties, and daddy daughter dances."

"I hate to break the news to you Dad, but I would have done none of those things," I say causing laugher at the whole table.

"You are your mother's daughter," Grandpa says."

Suddenly my phone rings. Oh, crap.

"Hi, mom," I say trying to escape form the booth. Sam almost answers before she realizes that I am not talking to her.

I was so worried about hiding this little field trip from my adopted Mom, that I never even thought about how a reminder of my adopted mom would affect Sam.

"Where are you?" she asks, panicked.

"I'm with Tessa and Abby," I say.

"The hell you are! They came back sick. A nasty case of food poisoning. I saw them at the grocery store buying crackers. They wouldn't tell me anything. Where are you? Are you ok? Did you get sick too?"

"No mom, I'm fine," I say taking a deep breath. I'm outside of the restaurant now, "I'm in Colorado Springs."

Pause. "Why?"

"Don't be mad, but I looked up my birth parents."

Silence.

"I love you, Mom."

"I tried my hardest. I know that things were hard after your father left us. I thought I did right by you."

"You did, Mom. You have to understand this has nothing to do with you. There was a piece missing, and it wasn't about my childhood. That was amazing. I just need to know… which parts I got from him or her, and which parts were all me. already knew all the wonderful things that you gave me."

I hear her take a deep breath, "So you found them?"

"Yeah, I'm at lunch with them right now. Also my grandpa."

"They still know each other?" she asks surprised, "Are they together?"

"No, they never really were. They were young," or at least one of them was, "They're just friends now. They actually work together."

"That's good honey," she says, still sounding a bit sad.

"Listen Mom, the next weekend after spring break I'd love to come home and talk to you."

"Ok," there is a pause, "What's she like?"

A lot of words flit through my mind. Brilliant. Amazing. Beautiful. Sweet. Shy. But none of those words are right. "I don't really know her." And that's true too.

"Ok, honey, I love you. Call me if you need anything."

"Ok."

I pause and look through the window at the family I almost had. Jacob obviously said something they all found hilarious. Jack and Sam lean back laughing. This is right. This is what should have happened. And I think I am going to have to do something to make this happen.

I'm just not exactly sure how to play matchmaker.

-0-0-0-

"Everything ok at home?" Jack asks.

My stomach does a flip flop when I consider lying to him. Dads are intense. "Ah… yeah, mom was just checking in."

"Did she know where you were?" he asks.

I shake my head.

"Jane!" Mom scolds, loudly enough that the booths around us turn and stare.

"I'm sorry," I mutter.

"Honey, I don't think you understand how much parents worry. If you knew what kind of torment you put people through when you did it, you would never think of lying to her about where you were. You can never do that. To her, or to Sam or me. You got that?" he says.

"Yes, sir," I say.

There is a moment of silence, and I am not sure how this is going to be breached. Then Jacob grins, "She gets that from her mother, you know."

"Dad," Mom scolds.

"Did you have some mischievous days?" Jack asks.

"Nope, I was well behaved, just like our daughter is going to be from now on."

The words 'our daughter' reverberate in my skull. A grin crosses my face. Sam seems to catch the spreading grin. She puts a hand around me. "Daughter," she says leaning in, and kissing my hairline.

My phone vibrates with a text message. There is only one person who texts me. I pull it out, and my cheeks turn bright red. Dang it, I'm not going to be able to hide anything now.

"You k? Babe?" Matt asks.

"Not babe." I remind him.

"Found her?"

"Them," I say.

"Call tonight?"

"Yep."

"What's his name?" Jacob asks teasingly.

"It's no one," I say.

"Honey, you're sitting at table with three people trained in interrogation methods. If you don't wave the white flag now, you are going to regret it," Jacob points out.

"It's Matt."

"You've been dating him long?" Jack asks.

I nod, blushing harder.

"I'm actually… ah… we're engaged," I flush looking at their faces to see their reactions.

Jacob is grinning. Mom and Dad, not so much. "How old are you?" Dad asks.

"Nineteen."

"That's young," Dad replies.

"I've known him for a long time," I defend.

"Honey, I'm not saying that this guy isn't great. But maybe you should wait until after you finish school," Mom says.

"You know my school plans, I have seven years of schooling yet. I do not want to wait that long."

"I just worry that if you give up on school now, you might not ever go back to it," Mom says.

"I'm not planning on giving up school. It's not like going to school is any harder than having a job. And people have a job and are married ALL the time," she points out.

"College is supposed to be fun, kiddo, and if you get married you might miss out on some of the fun," Dad says, "Jacob, you want to chime in?" he says, looking expectantly at the older (at least by a little) man.

"First of all, Jack, I'm not sure I want my granddaughter experiencing any college fun that she couldn't do while married," he says with raised eyebrows. "And secondly, I think Jane should marry him if he really is a good guy."

"What?" Mom and Dad ask with equal surprise.

"Listen, Jane," he says, ignoring them, "I spent my whole life choosing work over family. And I almost lost my kids because of it. As it was… I missed out on so much of their lives. All the important stuff. And they missed out too. They needed me, and I was distracted. I taught my kids to make the same choices. And Mark, bless his heart, ignored my advice, like he always did. So he gets to be happy. Sam, your mother, she followed me like a good little airman, and look where it got her."

"Dad, I'm happy," Sam protests.

He looks at her for a long second, "No Sam, you're content. And that's ok. But if I'd been a better father, if I'd let you keep Jane, if I'd showed you what it looked like to make family a priority, you might, right now have a family as well as the amazing career that you have." He smiles at her, and then he turns to me, "I'm certainly not going to talk a third generation out of following her heart."

"Thanks, grandpa," I say. Tears form in his eyes as I say the words.

"However," he adds, looking again like a scary General, "This guy had better be pretty near perfect. Only the best for my girls."

"Like Jack," I say, winking at Grandpa.

"Exactly, like Jack," he says winking at Mom.

She blushes before saying, "Ok, tell us more about this Matt."

-0-0-0-

"Sam!" a teenage girl says as she enters the house, "Mom is going on a date. She claims it's a friend thing, but we both know if it were a friend thing, you'd be along. Anyway, not like I need a babysitter or anything, but she was wondering if I could hang out here. I told her it could be a sleepover, in case, you know, the date goes well. She threatened to ground me for that…"

The girl stops talking as she stares at me. "Ah… hi."

"You must be Cassie," I say.

"Yep, is Sam home?" she says uncertainly, "I mean… you're not her, right? You weren't de-aged or something by… ah, things you know nothing about?"

"It's ok, I actually know about our friend the Stargate. But I'm not Sam. She went with her dad to pick up some clothes. He's staying on Earth for a few days."

"So they found another kid on a mission?" she asks, and I don't miss the hint of jealousy in her words.

"Not so much," I tell her.

"So…" she says.

"I think Sam should probably tell you that…" I hesitate. I'm a little surprised and disappointed that she hasn't already done that.

"Ok, well, should I go home or…"

"No, you're definitely welcome. Although I'm probably staying in the room you usually use. I don't mind you staying if you don't."

"Hold it, you're staying with Sam?" Cassie asks.

I nod.

"You've got to be related to her, right?"

I shrug.

"You're too old to be her daughter."

I gasp a bit.

"What? Sam had a kid when she was like?" she prompts.

There really isn't much point lying. "Sixteen."

"Wow, you think she would have brought that up."

"I think she gave me up for adoption, just so she wouldn't have to bring that up," I say.

"I was adopted… not by Sam," she rushes on, "Janet. You lucked out with Sam for a Mom," she suddenly clasps a hand over her mouth, "Oh my gosh! Who is your Dad? I can't imagine… I mean, it's probably not someone I know. It's been so long."

"Ah… Sam wasn't with the father," I say, feeling bad that I besmirched her reputation, even temporarily. "There were some time traveling aliens involved," I hope, too late, that it's ok to tell Cassie that. "Jack's DNA was used."

"Well, you lucked out just as much with your dad as your mother. Jack's awesome. He's off world just as much as Sam is, but he makes time for me. He makes a lot of time for me."

"Yeah, he's got some… kid issues from his son."

Cassie nods her head gravely, "Yeah, Charlie's accident nearly destroyed him."

"It was an accident?" I say in surprise. "I just sort of figured… well, you know, the way that he talked about it, I thought… I mean, it sounded like suicide."

Cassie frowns, "Well, that would be more about the aftermath of Charlie's death than about Charlie."

"So it was… Jack," I say somberly. Cassie nods, "And he did it because he lost a kid." Cassie nods again. "And the whole time I was his kid." My dad almost died, and if he knew about me he might not have. I have to… be careful. I have to take care of Dad.

"Jane," Cassie says, "You don't have to make Jack want to live. He took care of that decision a long time ago. Parents are supposed to take care of their kids, not the other way around. Never the other way around."

"And how do you know all of that? What are you like, sixteen?"

"Seventeen, thank you very much," she says with a smile, "When Janet first adopted me, I was twelve. And at first, she, and Jack, and Sam, they were all trying to take care of me. I mean…" she looks away for a couple of seconds. "Let's just say that the way I ended up an orphan was pretty bad, and leave it at that. But, around a year later, I ended up telling everyone that Sam had this parasitic alien in her head. And after that I tried to fix their problems. You know, mom had a really crap ex-husband that still pops up from time to time. Then Sam has this weird habit of falling in love with a bunch of aliens. And Jack… Jack fights the sadness all of the time. And I tried to fix this for them. But you know what. They're better at it than me. And they… they like it that way."

"They like their lives to be screwed up?"

Cassie smiles, "Sort of. Mom needs occasional reminders of what a loser Greg was to keep her from ending up back with him, or another Greg. Sam has these light flings with aliens, because it keeps her from having a serious relationship. That doesn't sound right, but she has her reasons."

"Like the fact that she is in love with Jack?"

Cassie nods, "Yeah, and Jack. He has this darkness always around the corner from him. But there is no one who enjoys life more than him. And you certainly don't have to worry about Jack killing himself. That hasn't been a worry for a decade."

"Thanks, Cassie," I say, relieved. "I'm still going to try to get them together."

"It won't work," she says.

"I know their jobs are still really important to them."

"You are still going to try though, right?" she asks.

I nod my head.

"Ok, I'm going to help you."

"I thought you said it wasn't going to work."

"Oh, it's not going to work, but there is something beautiful in fighting the battle that you know you cannot win."


	7. Chapter 7

I should have thought of this even before the plan was hatched. And even if this plan doesn't work, like Cassie says, this part of the plan would have been something good.

"Hey, Jack," I say when he opens the door.

"Hey kiddo, where is Sam?" he says looking around.

"Ah, well, Cassie showed up, and things are a little crowded over there," I say. That part is a lie. I would have loved to have a sleep over with my… I don't know, sister, if things had gone differently.

Jack looks down at the bag in my hand. "You're missing out, avoiding Cassie."

"Look, if you don't want me to stay, its ok. I can get a hotel or go back to Sam's."

"You're always welcome," he says, moving aside so I can enter the room.

The living room is homely. It actually feels like the log cabin I heard he had in Minnesota.

He leads me down a hallway, and my heart stops. Maybe this wasn't a good idea. The guest room at Sam's house… that was meant for me. That was waiting for me all these years.

Jack's room isn't waiting… it's remembering. And it's not remembering me. This is the room of a ten year old boy. Even though I know that Charlie never actually lived in this house.

Airplanes on the bedspread, and hanging from the ceiling. Child drawings on the wall. Toys all around.

"I'm sorry," he says, watching me look around the room.

"I'm sorry," I tell him, "About Charlie."

He clears his throat, "You know it was my fault?"

"No," I start to protest.

He grabs lightly onto my arm, "I need you to know the truth. I left my gun out. Charlie played with it, because I never let him play with toy guns. And he shot himself, and he died. So it was my fault."

I stare into his eyes until he looks back into my eyes. It takes a lot longer than I thought it would.

"That, Jack, was not your fault."

He starts crying. I stand on my tip-toes to offer him a shoulder. I may be tall for a woman, very tall for a woman in fact. But I am still half a head shorter than my father.

He is stiff at first, but I pull him closer to me, and he lets go. The crying is brief, and when he is done, he pulls away awkwardly. We both pretend that nothing happened.

I wonder when the last time he let go in front of someone was.

-0-0-0-

I drop my bag off, but don't bother to unpack it. Then I head back to the living room.

He looks up when I come in. He's still a bit bashful from the waterworks, and he doesn't smile. But a light comes into his eyes when I enter the room. Geez, Matt doesn't even get that excited to see me. I was right that Jack REALLY needed me.

"You're too young to offer a beer to, but unfortunately there is nothing else to drink in this house besides water and beer."

"It's ok, I really like water, and I'm not even thirsty."

"I don't really know how to do this whole adult child thing," he admits, "I lost Charlie a long time before we got to this point."

"It's ok, I've never done the whole father/daughter thing," I say.

"You like the Simpsons?" he asks.

I laugh, "Yeah, my mom forbid me from watching them when I was a kid. She thought they would corrupt me. So, of course I watched them whenever I had a babysitter or went to a friend's house. And then when I first went to college I did it in lieu of studying for most of the first semester."

"Well, that's better than the things I did in lieu of studying my first semester of college," Jack says.

"Yeah, I don't believe that," I tell him.

He looks at me with a shocked face.

I point to his mantle, "That's a medal for academic excellence at the academy."

He smiles. "Yeah, that used to be hidden away, where it belonged. Then I made the mistake of suggesting that all of SG-1 help clean one another's closets and Carter found it. She demanded putting it up. You know your mother has one to match?"

"Yeah, but she doesn't have a mantle to hang it on."

"The living room wall does fine," he says.

The phone rings, and I find myself suddenly getting unbelievably nervous. It can't even be the phone call that I'm worried about, no way she realized I was missing so quickly.

He picks it up, and I realize it is this call. I can tell by the way that he's glaring at me. "Carter, take a breath, she's right here."

I hear a high pitched, but undecipherable sound on the other end of the phone.

"Carter, I promise she's fine. I can bring her over, but she asked to stay… Nope, I don't mind." He raises his eyebrows at me, and hands me the phone.

I take the phone. "Hi, Jane."

"Hi, mom," I say guiltily, hearing how worried her voice sounds.

"It's good that you went over to the Colonel's. He really needs that. In fact, I should have thought of it myself."

"Yeah," I agree, surprised that she could see that in him. I had been under the mistaken impression that they were as unaware of each other's emotions as their own. Apparently, I'd been wrong about that.

"I just hope you didn't feel like you needed to go over there. I mean, just because Cassie is here doesn't mean that you need to take off. I could have put her in my bed and stayed on the couch."

"Cassie and I could have shared the guest room," I tell her.

"Right, so it was just an excuse?" she says.

"Yeah," I confess.

"Ok, just know I'll miss you, and you're welcome back here anytime."

"Thanks, I'll miss you too."

I hang up the phone to see Jack glaring at me. "You didn't tell Carter you were coming to my house."

"She wasn't there when I made the decision."

"Ya couldn't leave a note?" he asks with raised eyebrows.

I shake my head.

He leans back, "You and Cassie have a fight?"

"No," I say.

"Did I mention I'm new at the whole adult child thing?"

I grin.

"So how about you go easy on the newbie, and tell me that nothing is up."

"Nothing is going on."

"Ah huh, sure," he says, "So, Simpsons?"

I nod. He flicks the TV on, and we watch in silence for a little bit.

"Why do you call her Carter?" I ask.

He flicks the TV off, and turns to me. "You're way too old to be playing parent trap."

I smile, "I wouldn't be trying if you weren't so obviously in love with her."

"Listen, you're barking up the wrong tree with this one. Three years ago, something at work… kind of made us talk about our emotions. Then Sam asked if we could leave it in the room. She didn't want to ruin her career. I can't ask her to ruin her career."

"Well, Cassie is working on Sam right now," I say.

"Of course she is," Jack says with a smile.

"But, you could have changed your career as easily as she could have."

He doesn't say anything.

"Right?" I prompt.

He nods.

"Ok, so why didn't you?"

"She asked me to leave it in the room, and just…" He looks up at me, looking vulnerable again. Twice in one day? What was I, magic? "What if she didn't really want it?"

I laugh, I actually laugh.

"What?" he asks nervously.

"Have you ever actually looked at her looking at you?"

He looks away from me for a second.

"You know, you do deserve happiness. Even if you've convinced yourself to the contrary."

His eyes focus on mine, "Nothing could ever happen between us while we were on the same team."

"I know, that's what Jacob said," I remind him.

"I need to be there to protect her. We… we do some crazy stuff on SG-1. I couldn't deal with the worry if I wasn't there to protect her. Daniel, he's great, but he's not a military genius. And Teal'c and Sam, they are amazing. I trust them with my life. But… I couldn't let her go through the gate all the time if I wasn't there to protect her."

"Well, that's a pretty good reason," I mutter.

"Sorry, kiddo."

"So you're just going to ignore the fact that you're in love with her forever?"

"Not forever," he says, "Someday, this war is going to be over. Someday we'll run out of enemies. And then we can have a happily ever after."

"That could be a long time," I offer.

"Well, you never know. My knee could go out tomorrow, and then I'd be retired, and then…"

"She deserves to be chosen, Jack."

"So do I," he mutters as he flips the Simpsons back on.

"D'oh," I offer, which wins me a sad grin.

-0-0-0-

A text message on my phone wakes me up a few hours later. Cassie was supposed to have given me a progress update a few hours ago. I can understand it, though. After a Simpson's marathon, Jack and I went out for ice cream before talking about absolutely nothing of importance for several hours. I can see how girl talk with Sam might have got her a little carried away.

"Sam loves SG-1."

"And Jack?" I respond.

"SG-1 more."

"Jack wants to protect her."

"Idiots."

"You said it." There is a pause. "I thought Sam would rush over here when she found out I was gone."

"If there is one person she trusts, it's Jack."

"Night," I say.

I lay in bed trying to think up a way to get them together. It's too bad that they didn't end up finding out about me when I was younger. Back when I really needed them. If I needed them, they would turn their lifestyles upside down for me.

That is the answer.

I send a quick text to Matt. "I'm going to tell my parents you broke up with me."

"Why?"

"I think they will get together."

"'Kay, just don't forget I love you."

I slip the ring off, and put it in a small packet in my luggage.

-0-0-0-

"I made my famous omelets," Jack proclaims.

"It smells like that ingredient is beer," I reply in my most depressing voice.

He looks up at me with panic in his face, "What's wrong?"

"Matt… broke up with me," I say, breaking into tears. That's right, four years of drama in a high school, and it was totally not a waste!

"Oh, sweetie," he says, pulling me into a tight hug.

When the hug is over, he gets even more awkward than he was last night when I was offering him comfort.

"Listen, I don't really know… the right thing to say in this. You mind if I call in your mother as reinforcement?"

I shake my head. In fact, my whole plan hinged on it.

He excuses himself to go into the other room to make a phone call I can't here. I flip the omelets onto plates to stop them from burning.

"She's brining Cass," he says, stirring more eggs into pans. "So do you want to tell me what happened?"

"Not really," I say, and that is mostly because, I didn't actually come up with a back story for the breakup.

"You want ice cream for breakfast?" he asks.

I'm pretty sure that if Jack had raised me, I never would have grown up to be a health food addict.

-0-0-0-

"Honey," Sam says, pulling me into a hug.

"That jerk!" Cassie exclaims. Yeah, I should have sent her a warning e-mail. Otherwise, my new sister might do the 'fixing' instead of my parents.

I pull the phone out, and type the message underneath the table. Her phone beeps, and she takes a glance at it. Then she glares at me.

"So why did he break it off?"

Well, maybe I can make them say the things that they refuse to think, "He thinks I'm going to get in the way of his work."

"What does he do?" she asks.

"Well, school right now. But eventually he wants to be a doctor."

"So, most doctors are married," Jack protests.

"Well, most people are married. That doesn't mean that individual people can't decide that their jobs are incompatible with family."

Jack narrows his eyes at me. He knows what I'm doing. Or at least, he's figured out part of it. I doubt he's actually guessed I faked the breaking off of my engagement just to make this point.

"Sweet, he would be an idiot to trade the happiness that he could have with you for anything else."

My phone beeps, and I know who the message is from, and what it says even before I take a peek. I was correct on both accounts. Cassie wrote me, "I told you - idiots."

I can't help but giggle. I look up to see the room staring at me. "Sorry," I mutter.

"Glad to see you laugh," Jack says suspiciously.

Right, I've got to be sadder. So they feel like I really need them. I burst into tears.


	8. Chapter 8

Going to bed in the early evening is a guarantee that I'm to wake up in the middle of the night. Usually, that just means that I wake up surrounded by textbooks.

This time, I'm surrounded by parents and junk food. I wonder if Jack's house actually only contains junk food, or if he's just doing this because he is now buying the emotional distress angle. The waterworks put him off balance enough that he will believe pretty much anything that you say during them.

I don't want to wake them up. I seem to be moving toward my parents being together. After all, Sam and Jack are in the same bed. Then again, whenever they are off world they share tents. Teal'c and Daniel are there too, of course, so there is nothing romantic in it. Of course, right now, I'm in bed too, so there is nothing romantic in this.

I stand up as slowly as I can.

I hear Sam's voice, "You ok, honey?"

I nod my head, letting my shoulders heave a bit.

She puts her hand on my shoulder, "I bet you wished this happened when you were at home."

"Why?" I asked.

"So your real mom could help you deal with this."

"You are my real mom," I tell her, turning toward her.

She smiles at me, "You know what I mean."

"You're doing a great job, Sam."

"Could I have done this?" she asks.

"You can still do this, Sam, there is plenty of time for you to have kids."

She shakes her head, "I'm already getting a little bit old for that, and by the time I found a guy, I'd be…"

"You've already found him," I say, looking toward Jack's sleeping form in the bed.

She looks at him, looking sadder than my play acting can imitate, "And maybe someday we could… if…"

"The universe is never going to be at peace all at once," I tell her.

"I just can't… give it up," she says slowly.

Suddenly, the doorbell rings. Both of us glance at Jack, but he doesn't wake up.

Sam shrugs, and we head toward the door. We open it up to show a kid in his early teens.

"How many more child surrogates do you have?" I ask Sam.

"You and the old man finally got together?" the kid asks excitedly.

Sam blushes as she moves aside to let him into the house, "Ah, no," she stammers.

"So what exactly are you doing at his house at 3 am, then?"

I smile, "That might have something to do with me."

"And how exactly did we end up with a mini-Carter? Please tell me that Loki wasn't involved. If he was, you think he could have matched our ages," he says with a grin.

"Oh God, stop, Jonathan!" Sam exclaims, "She's your daughter."

"Um… I'm pretty sure that I didn't actually exist when she was conceived," he says, looking at me.

"Ok, so she's not exactly your kid, she's the Colonel's."

"Funny, you'd think I'd remember that."

"Loki was involved," I say, feeling a little bit left out, "But could you tell me who exactly you are?"

"Clearance?" he asks.

At Sam's nod he says, "I'm Jack's clone. But you're not a clone, you're Sam and Jack's kid?"

I nod.

"How exactly is it that you are just showing up now?" he asks.

"I had her when I was sixteen. She's only been old enough to track me down for a year."

"And you failed to mention this because…" he says, sounding a lot like Jack.

"Hold it, if you're Jack's clone why are you so young?"

"Loki isn't great with the Xerox," he explains.

"He also has all of Jack's memories," Sam explains.

"Wow, from zero to two dads in a few days."

"You do realize that I am, what… five years younger than you?"

"Look, I'll make you some…" Sam's eyes narrow at herself, "I forgot I'm at Jack's place. No tea."

"I'll take a beer," he says hopefully.

"Actually, you'll take a water," she says with a grin.

He looks hopefully at me, "You honestly think I'm going to encourage my father to drink underage?"

"I have the mind of a fifty year old."

"But your body isn't," Sam says, handing him a glass of water. "I didn't know you kept contact with the Colonel."

"Yeah, well," Jon stammers, "It's not like I come over a lot."

"You're here in the middle of the night," I suddenly realize, "Is something wrong?"

Jon fidgets, and I realize that my nerves may have come from my mother, but the things I do when I am nervous came from my father. "Not anything major. But when I need to talk to Jack, I always show up in the middle of the night."

"What's going on?" Jack says, emerging from the bedroom.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know you had company," Jon apologizes.

Jack rolls his eyes, "What did you do now?"

"Hey, the teacher deserved it! He was totally flirting with his student! It was nasty, man," Jon says.

"Did you at least try reporting him before you punched his lights out?" Jack asks as he takes a paper from Jon's hand.

"I did report him, and this time I did not punch him. I merely, ah… used some colorful language. Luckily the worse stuff was from Shakespeare, and the idiot teacher didn't get it. But the modern stuff was bad enough that they want a chat with my dear old dad."

Jack flips the paper over, "Yeah, this time works for me."

"So, Jack gets you out of trouble with the school often?" Sam teases.

Jon glares at her, "I always have good reasons. Do you know that no one listens to a kid?"

"Yeah, he mostly punches the lights out of bullies, and spills things on the tests of cheaters, and there was brief phase where he got in trouble for talking about girl's boobs."

Sam glares at Jon in horror. I'm a little creeped out too. I mean, this is my dad we're talking about… sort of.

"I was telling them to put on a shirt that covered their cleavage, for crying out loud! I'm sorry, but little girls should not be walking around showing off as much breast as your average playboy magazine!"

Jack giggles, "Yeah, that was my favorite conversation with the principal. And then there was the physics test where he corrected all of the teacher's questions."

Jon glares at him, "She was an idiot."

"You didn't write down anything classified did you, sir?" Sam asks worriedly.

"Nothing that wasn't in your book," he says.

"You mean the book I can't publish because it's classified?" she asks with raised eyebrows.

"Oops!" Jon says, with a shrug of his shoulders.

"Well, I doubt they are going to take anything written by a fourteen year old troublemaker too seriously," Sam says.

Jon really glares at her for this one.

"Where you going to let me know that we are a father again, old boy?" Jon asks. I can tell that he only threw in the 'old boy' comment to drive Jack batty.

"I knew it wouldn't be too long before you showed up in trouble," Jack teases.

"Well, I'm glad it happened now. Otherwise, I wouldn't have gotten to know my daughter," he says, looking me over. "Thank God she takes after Sam."

"Not the eyes," I point out, looking into his.

"No, blue is recessive. Both of my parents had brown eyes, there is no way I could ever have a kid with blue eyes. Although, Jacob has got to be a carrier for the gene," Jack says.

"You know about genetics, sir?" Sam asks.

Jack coughs, "Blowing our cover."

That just makes Jon grin, "You forget, old man, I have no reason to make people believe that I am dumb."

"So what is your major, Jane?" he asks.

"Biology," she says.

"Interesting field, you know that your mother knows quite a bit about it? She worked with nanotechnology for a year," Jon says.

"Sir, that has nothing to do with biology," Sam protests.

"She was trying to teach the cells to repair damaged cells. A fountain of youth kinda thing," he says conspiratorially toward me.

"So, Carter, did you know what happened back when… back when she was born?" Jon asks.

"Not so much, I mean, I knew that virgin birth probably wasn't a valid explanation, but I didn't have a better one."

Jon whistles, "That must have been terrifying."

Sam looks away.

"Mom," I say, grabbing her hand.

"You shouldn't have had to do that alone," Jon says.

"I would have been there for her if I could have," Jack says.

"_I_ know that, and I could be there for her," Jon says.

We all stare at him in shock. "Come on, I'm close to the right age, we've got a time machine. High school sucks even more the second time. And admit that you're sick of having to convince the principal you're not a crappy dad," he says to Jack.

"Hold it, you have a time machine?" I ask.

"Yeah, they are some of the only people who can operate it," Sam adds.

"Are they offering rides?" I ask, looking hopefully looking from one to the other.

"It's not for joy rides, kid," Jack says.

"Yes, we've never even used it. The damage to the space-time continuum could be…" Mom begins.

"Cut the crap, Carter," Jon says.

"What?" she asks, stunned.

"You and I both know," he says, "That a time machine doesn't actually make you super powerful. If you change things for the better, they are better. If you change things for the worse, they are worse. Just like if you do a good thing or a bad thing now, your future is either the better or worse for it. My daughter grew up without a father. And I sure as hell would like to fix that for her. Even if I can't actually be the father," he says, looking at Jon.

"Yeah, I could just imagine Jacob's face if you showed up claiming to be the father of his teenage daughter's baby," Jon says with a grin.

"Oh, and there is the problem," Sam says, "Dad would KILL you!"

"I don't think so," I put in, "Grandpa really likes Jack. I'm sure he'd feel the same about Jon when he got to know him."

Both Jon and Jack get a really big grin on their face at these words.

"Yeah, that would probably be after he killed him though," Sam points out.

"Look, you guys don't have to do this. I'm fine," and I feel a little guilty for hoping that they will. I mean, I love my adoptive mom, and if they do this… she and I will never meet. I mean, she'll probably have gotten another baby eventually. I just hope it will be before my dad and her split. I wouldn't want her to go through that alone.

"Would you have kept her, then?" Jack asks, "I mean, if you had the father to help?"

"Yes," Sam says firmly, "I was so close anyway. The only thing that kept me from it was Dad telling me I would screw her up forever. And the thought of raising her in a house with…" she hangs her head.

Both of my dad's look at her with concern. And I find my heart sinking at what childhood secret is about to be revealed.

"Mark drank a lot back then. I mean, he wasn't violent or anything. It was just… between that and Dad being at work all the time… It wasn't the most baby-friendly house," she looks up at Jon, "But if you were there to help me… I wouldn't have been so scared I would ruin her."

"I think we're missing something else. Jon, you're just assuming that she's going to accept you as the father of her child," Jack says.

"I would have," Sam nods.

"Ok," Jack says, grabbing a sheet of paper, "Battle plan, and don't forget plan B."

"Hold it, you're actually considering stealing a time machine for me?" I ask in shock.

Jack looks at me in surprise, "Honey, this is what's like to have a father."


	9. Chapter 9

**Note: Absolutely correct Pat I was wrong the genetics. I was thinking Jack couldn't be the carrier for the blue eyed genes if both of his parents had brown eyes. I neglected the fact that his parents couldn't be carriers. Duh! Do a retroactively fail my high school advanced bio class now?**

I start to feel pretty left out as the three of them sit around the dinner table and plan. I can tell that all three of them are really good at this, but I think that some of their plans are a little bit crazy.

"I'm telling you distraction," Jon says waggling his eyebrows at Sam.

"You're worse than the Colonel," Sam mutters, "The time machine isn't actually guarded. There is no one to distract. We just need to block out the cameras."

"Come on Carter, you could distract SOMEONE," Jack says.

"Who?" she demands.

"Your commanding officer?" he jokes.

"Sir, can you be serious?" Sam says annoyed.

"Carter, it's a simple operation. We walk into base just like we always do," he says.

"Separately," Carter points out.

"Of course, I haven't forgot the time that we arrived on base at the same time," Jack says.

"What happened?" Jon says.

"Right," Sam laughs, "That was after you. They made copies of the log in sheet, and posted them around base."

"Seriously?"

The both nod.

"Wait," Jon says eyes shinning, "Sam really does need to distract someone."

"Would you too stop acting so high school?" Sam groans.

"No, you've got to steal the tapes from the security guards," Jack says grinning.

Sam glares at him.

"Ok, so I steal the tapes, you use my security card to get Jon into the room with the security card."

"Hold it, why do I use your key card?" Jack asks.

"Ah, Sir, they didn't give you access to that room," Sam says.

"I outrank you!" he bellows. "Why the hell do you have access if I don't?"

"They didn't give access to anyone with the Ancient gene. It's a security measure designed to prevent…"

"Exactly what we're doing," Jack says.

"Who is going to vouch me on base?" Jon asked.

"Janet," Sam says.

"Are we going to involve another person in this?" Jon asks in surprise.

"Think about it. It would make sense that Janet would want to do a medical check-up on you," Sam says.

"She's right, and we can trust her," Jack says.

"Ok, there is only one more thing to settle," Jon says looking at Sam, "I'm going to need a lot of details, what was life like for you back then? I need to know about your family, your pregnancy, everything," he says.

I got into my luggage and drag out the box of letters, "These might help," I say setting them in front of Jon.

He looks up at Sam with something in his eyes that I can't mistake for anything but love. Which is weird, because he's fourteen, and she's forty. They've got this kind of love which defies age and time, and everything. Its crazy awesome.

But suddenly I worry. Are they doing all this just for a marriage of convince?

"Ah…you're not just doing this for me?" I ask.

Sam and Jon don't answer. Jack does. "They're doing this, because you're there only shot at raising a kid. And I'm as jealous as hell."

Then they both look at me with hope in their eyes.

"I'd be honored to be raised by some version of you three."

Then the worlds strangest group hug happens.

-0-0-0-

I glance at my clock. If the plan worked the world will be changing in a couple of seconds. All of this will cease to exit. I dial my mom's number.

"Hi honey, you ok?"

"Yeah, I just wanted you to know that I love you."

"I love you too, Jane," she says.

"I'm glad you were my mom."

"Well, I'm glad you're my daughter."

And then the time line adjusted.

**Note: Don't panic, there will be a sequel.**


End file.
